Anibeth Turcios relishes her role as an ambassador for East Aldine, where she grew up. (Neighborhood Centers Inc.)

Anibeth Turcios relishes her role as an ambassador for East Aldine, where she grew up. (Neighborhood Centers Inc.)

Guides provide insight to community

1 / 2

Back to Gallery

When you're trying to learn a lot about a new place in a hurry, it's useful to have a guide. In reporting Tuesday's column on East Aldine, I had two.

The first was Jerry Wood, who knows more about Houston neighborhoods than anyone I've ever met. I've known Wood since I covered city government in the early 1980s; he was a top aide to then-Mayor Kathy Whitmire, and he later worked in the city's Planning and Development Deparment. He grew up in Houston and seems to have absorbed every detail about the place that ever entered his consciousness.

"I have a really good memory," he says. To which I would add: He pays attention.

Wood accompanied me on a drive through East Aldine, pointing out stuff I wouldn't have noticed ("no street lights") and explaining the difference between the houses built by owners on single lots and those put in by subdivision developers. He also helped me understand the forces that helped to shape the community, including the fact that the city never annexed the area.

Translator

To read this article in one of Houston's most-spoken languages, click on the button below.

US & World

My second guide, a couple of weeks later, was Anibeth Turcios, 32, a native of East Aldine who seems to relish being an ambassador for the community. (She is featured in a video produced by Neighborhood Centers Inc., a nonprofit participating in a major redevelopment project in East Aldine.)

Turcios is a neighborhood success story, a daughter of immigrants who gained their citizenship in the 1980s amnesty program. Her parents had grade-school educations, but Turcios made it to the University of Texas, worked in Austin for a while and then came back to her roots.

During our tour, Turcios kept pointing out how many small businesses -- beauty salons, taquerias, small retailers of every description -- were crammed into the strip centers, a reflection of the neighborhood's entrepreneurial spirit.

She recalled how, after a bank refused to lend her father money to start his now-thriving event venue business, a neighborhood grocer provided the funds.

"That shows you how, in this area, they don't give up," Turcios said.

Between Wood's insights and Turcios' history, I was able to get a sense of a place that I knew virtually nothing about, even though it's been right there in front of me for decades.